1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to installing data storage system software on disk drive systems.
2. Brief Description of Related Prior Art
As is known in the art, large mainframe computer systems and data servers sometimes require large capacity data storage systems. One type of data storage system is a magnetic disk storage system. Here a bank of disk drives and the computer systems and data servers are coupled together through an interface. The interface includes storage processors that operate in such a way that they are transparent to the computer. That is, data is stored in, and retrieved from, the bank of disk drives in such a way that the mainframe computer system or data server functions as if it is operating with one mainframe memory. One type of data storage system is a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) data storage system. A RAID data storage system includes two or more disk drives in combination for fault tolerance and performance. A RAID data storage system is typically made up of a front-end data processor (DPE) and mated with back-end storage disk array enclosure (DAE). Typically the DPE boots up using information which is pre-installed on disks of either the DPE or the DAE. The pre-installed information conventionally needs to be customized to the exact type, configuration and nature of the DPE and the exact type, configuration and nature of the disk drives chosen to form the RAID data storage system. Consequently the disk drives which are pre-installed with information for a specific DPE and disk drive configuration are different from similar disk drives which are pre-installed with information for a different DPE and disk drive configuration, due to the information difference install on the drives.